Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #154

[Guest blogger Jason Powell continues his issue by issue look at Chris Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men Run. For more in this series, see the toolbar on the right.]

“Reunion”

The mostly-whimsical previous issue had one particularly intriguing scene, depicting Charles Xaver’s concern that the X-Mansion’s funds were running low because of all the repair work it was requiring lately. That tantalizing bit of verisimilitude takes us rather surprisingly into a new status quo in issue 154, as the X-Men have taken up residence at Magneto’s island headquarters in the Bermuda Triangle. The story notes that Xavier’s decision to relocate the team is also thanks to intimations of a new, “growing wave of anti-mutant sentiment in the States,” which “may have official sanction.” This references the esoteric “Project Wideawake” cliffhanger at the end of the “Days of Future Past” arc.

The abrupt change in the status quo, and the various intimations of mounting menace, combine to give “Reunion” an intense urgency that had been missing from the series for over a year. This is by far Claremont’s most tightly focused X-Men script since John Byrne’s departure. Claremont seems keenly aware, too, that he’s regained his focus and direction. His narration on the opening splash that Cyclops and Storm are “blissfully unaware that this is merely the calm before the tempest” is a paraphrase of one of the first lines of the Dark Phoenix Saga, implicitly promising that another powerful epic is about to begin. He’ll turn out to be right; the coming Brood story arc, while lacking in the laser-beam intensity of his best collaborations with Byrne, will over time resolve itself into one of Claremont’s most exciting and emotionally rewarding stories.

Roger McKee talks in “Story” of the importance of a great inciting incident, and Claremont deploys one shrewdly here. The reappearance of Corsair immediately re-ignites the long-ignored subplot in which Cyclops was kept in the dark about their relationship, and the shocking suddenness with which Scott learns the truth is arresting. The issue’s momentum does not let up – indeed, when the mansion is completely destroyed by the Sidri, it feels as if we are truly witnessing an epic change in the course of the series.

(As it turns out, this watershed moment will be somewhat swiftly reversed, as the mansion is rebuilt over the course of only a couple issues. My hunch is that Claremont would have liked to keep the mansion’s destruction permanent and keep the X-Men as outcasts whose new home was the Bermuda Triangle, but Jim Shooter felt the school was too integral to the X-Men concept. Very soon after Shooter steps down as Editor in Chief to replaced by Tom DeFalco, Claremont will again relocate the X-Men to a remote location – the Australian Outback this time – and keep them from returning to the mansion for over two years.)

Only two X-Men, Storm and Cyclops, take part in this issue’s extended action sequence, but that ends up working in the story’s favor, contributing to its streamlined feel. There’s also a sense of novelty to it, as these two particular characters have never interacted at so much length before now. Claremont discovers some surprising chemistry between Scott and Ororo – the way they continually hand back and forth the role of leadership over the course of the story is particularly well handled. One gets the sense that Claremont might have developed their camaraderie here into a deep and abiding friendship had the series’ plotlines not ended up taking the characters in other directions.

Artistically, this issue is a striking one as well. No doubt thrilled that the series is returning to the space opera of his and Claremont’s pre-Byrne collaborations, Dave Cockrum seems as refreshed and exuberant as his partner. After a string of conventionally superheroic exploits, the X-Men are back in an unabashedly sci-fi story, and on every level they seem the better for it.

Even in the humor department, Claremont and Cockrum both seem to be having fun. Cockrum’s touch of having “Kitty’s Dragon” painted on the side of the Blackbird can’t help but bring a grin, and Claremont seems to mock his own verbosity as a writer in a throwaway bit about how much information Kitty can fit on a postcard.

Also of note: Carol Danvers, imported into the book’s cast as of issue 150 from her quasi-redemptive misadventure in Claremont’s Avengers Annual 10, is starting to become more integrated into the proceedings. In “Reunion,” we learn for the first time that she and Wolverine have worked together in the past, an important revelation that will inform the early relationship between Logan and Rogue.

6 comments:

I am reading scans of the original issues, and I assume this was corrected, but there is this hilarious error in mine, where the phrase "totally sequential" is used when "totally inconsequential" was wanted.

Yeah, Bully actually did a post about how George Perez draws great rubble, and included a bunch of images from X-Men Annual #3, and it was only about three days before or after when my blog-posting about Annual #3 went up here. I sent Bully a link and commented on the weird coincidence, but I don't know whether he followed it, or if he was much interested in what he saw if he did. Obviously he's never commented here ...

About Me

Geoff Klock has a big degree from a fancy-pants university. He wrote some books on superheroes and poetry like 10 years ago. Also essays on film, and TV and teaching. You have Google, right? He spoke at the Met once, and inspired a name of a villain in Matt Fraction's Casanova, which is a really good comic book. He made a crazy mash up of like 200 movie and TV clips quoting Hamlet. Geoff teaches mostly writing, but also Old Brit Lit and Film, at BMCC. He rides a bicycle to get there. He is very good at Facebook?

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Regular Guest Bloggers

Jason Powell has taken on the yeoman's job of doing an issue by issue analysis of Chris Claremont's 17 year Uncanny X-Men run in an effort to make me feel bad for saying Morrison invented all kinds of things he did not in his New X-Men run, and for spelling Claremont "Clairmont" in my superhero book.

Scott McDarmont (Scott91777) is an Instructor Of English at Radford University, Radford VA, an avid reader of books by guys named Chuck, he usually “waits for the trade” on comics unless Frank Miller is somehow involved. He owns more Def Leppard CDs than Bob Dylan CDs and he is ‘Ok’ with this and, while he may answer different publicly, he secretly feels that The Empire Strikes Back is the best movie ever made. He also feels that there are two kinds of people in the world: Indiana Jones people and John McClane people. He considers himself an Indiana Jones person

Jill Duffy, girl reporter, is a professional writer and editor in New York. She spent five years covering video game development in both San Francisco and London, examining the art, science, and business of the industry, and in 2006 was named one of the top 100 most influential women in the game industry. Her work has appeared in The Examiner newspaper in San Francisco, where she was the food section editor, as well as Game Developer, Gamasutra.com, Intelligent Enterprise, DigitalTrends.com, and several other publications. She holds a BA in English from the University at Buffalo. Indeed, she is on the Twitter and also keeps a blog about food.

Andy Bentley is a graphic designer in upstate New York. The first series of Batman movies got him in a comic book store and the DC animated series made him a life long fan. His senior thesis was a short film on the culture of comic books. Animal Man, Starman, and Preacher are among his favorite comic runs. He is an avid toy collector and enjoys playing basketball, mash-ups, karaoke and dark beers. He will be sequestered most of September with The Beatles: Rock Band.